50 minutes ago, NukeMaster said:

He is factoring in rally which is 2 sides of a d6 (33.33...%). So on average rally will remove 1 suppression for every three. Hence to panic a 2 courage unit you will need 6 and to for a 3 courage unit 9 suppression.

Correct. Granted, you could do so with as little as 4, but the odds are good to shrug 1 out 4 on a 33% chance (average removing 1.33). If you have 5, you pull 1.66, so they're more likely than not to pull the 2 they need to stick around.

4 tokens will fail to clear about a fifth of the time, fwiw.

But by turn 4ish your panicking right? Assuming the are added at the same rate

On 5/29/2018 at 8:28 PM, Katarn said:

Then the rebels are shooting unbreakable stormtroopers and rule out having infantry within range 2 of Vader or any objective within that radius. Vader is always a scoring unit himself although he is arguably less useful in breakthrough, plus killing any lone commander makes tackling any army much easier. It makes him harder to ignore than an AT-ST.

On a separate note, the base size means an AT-ST moves faster than any infantryman without a jet pack. If rebels aren't shooting it, maybe you should ram it down their throats? With support, obviously. Especially now the internet has decided ion weapons are over costed and feeble.

I have been trying to tell people this locally. So many just park the atst on the back and I ignore it late if some ion.

Run that thing in there and force me to deal with it!

3 minutes ago, Tirion said:

But by turn 4ish your panicking right? Assuming the are added at the same rate

Not if it’s me.

By turn 4 I’ve failed every save and don’t have a unit left to panic! ?

1 hour ago, LunarSol said:

4 tokens will fail to clear about a fifth of the time, fwiw.

While useful to know, if you're plan is a 20%, it's not a good plan

15 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

While useful to know, if you're plan is a 20%, it's not a good plan

I'm mean, its not a great plan, but if Vader dies if a unit activates but lives if they don't and you have an opportunity to put a fourth suppression on them, its not the worst gamble out there.

Vader is bonkers good. He can easily control a good portion of the board by turn six and that’s all you need. Compared to other high point options he is in a league of his own. He never breaks, he never cowers and in a Vader vs Luke fight he is going to win.

vader is good to the last drop.

Him and Luke being the default are the reason most people feel armor is weak (it’s really not)

Except Vader doesn't always win versus Luke, with some precombat shooting easy enough to knock a few wounds of him and then Luke with double attacks finished him off.

Tell that to my dice. In two games I've managed to pull off a regular and double attack against Vader with Luke. Over those 36 attacks I've caused 5 damage in total and lost Luke. And there were re-rolls from aiming.

Still if we knew what was going to happen when we roll dice it would be boring. Or lucrative if playing a different sort of game.

If Vader is fresh, Luke coming in on him with dodge tokens is basically a coin flip that will end in Vader's favor should he survive. If he's first softened, either stripping him of tokens or getting a wound or two; Vader has few options to survive. In a way, both of them act more as area denial. Luke's advantage is that he can do it from complete safety behind a building and there's not really much in the way of counterplay beyond trying to bait him out and hope to not lose too much in the process.

I agree, both Vader and Luke work as area denial pieces, and are also like magnets to each other. As for who wins the engagement between the two, entirely depends on how the dice rolls at the end of the day.

This randomness is what gives the game the excitement factor - could set up the perfect attack only to see you fumble the dice and you lose the character.

Generally speaking the advantage should trend towards Luke, simply because he pretty trivially has the ability to initiate the encounter on his terms. Even if the Vader player can force a battle, Luke should pretty reliably do enough damage to make it, at worst, an even trade.

So, my best real life list at the moment is Vader, 2x Speeder Bikes, 3x Stormtroopers w/ DLT and 2x Snowtroopers with Flametrooper. I feel this list is quite strong, and it relies on Vader.

This is obviously a tough game to conduct a unit-by-unit comparison, and quite frankly, the strength of units is very much based on the strength of the players. For every strength of Vader that has been posted in this thread, someone else has posted their counter. Which is good. No character should have an unchecked strength.

I've lost my Vader on several occasions, and it is always when I march forward for the sake of marching forward. In my opinion, the correct way to play Vader is to move him into a position where you know your opponent will need to go. Usually this is near an objective. Based on map, key choke points are huge. The other thing about Vader, at least with my list, is that he should be backed by Flametroopers. The combination of Vader and Snowtroopers create a killzone that your enemy will not want to enter.

The biggest threat to this strategy is definitely Luke. He is the unit that worries me the most. As such, if you are playing Vader, you want to get a few wounds onto Luke before he engages with the Dark Lord. I've had great success doing this with my bikes, as well as my DLTs. I hold my bikes as long as I can on Turn 1, and generally send them Jedi Hunting. Even if Luke has 2 or 3 wounds, it makes Son of Skywalker so much riskier.

Also, when playing Vader, Dodge tokens are oh-so-important. Force Reflexes is used every single turn. I have Force Choke equipped for when I'm in a pickle and need to take out an annoying Z-6 or something, but Force Reflexes is what I am refreshing every turn. Vader gets a dodge EVERY TURN and when I'm in a defensive position my Vader will rarely double-move. Instead, it'll be a second Dodge + Move + Free Attack, or, if appropriate, Aim + Move + Free Attack.

We played the Escalation Event at my game store the other day, and with the above strategy my Vader never died. I did successfully kill a Luke, however.

Do I think Luke is the better Commander? Yeah, as an Imperial player I'm kind of jealous. However, I honestly leave my Veers and AT-ST at home in favour of the aforementioned Vader list. I'm not sure if this will change with Boba comes out. I'm thinking it probably will. However, Vader is no slouch. You just can't march him forever forward and assume he will survive. Which is why Long March is the last thing you ever want to play as Vader!

5 hours ago, Copes said:

So, my best real life list at the moment is Vader, 2x Speeder Bikes, 3x Stormtroopers w/ DLT and 2x Snowtroopers with Flametrooper. I feel this list is quite strong, and it relies on Vader.

This is obviously a tough game to conduct a unit-by-unit comparison, and quite frankly, the strength of units is very much based on the strength of the players. For every strength of Vader that has been posted in this thread, someone else has posted their counter. Which is good. No character should have an unchecked strength.

I've lost my Vader on several occasions, and it is always when I march forward for the sake of marching forward. In my opinion, the correct way to play Vader is to move him into a position where you know your opponent will need to go. Usually this is near an objective. Based on map, key choke points are huge. The other thing about Vader, at least with my list, is that he should be backed by Flametroopers. The combination of Vader and Snowtroopers create a killzone that your enemy will not want to enter.

The biggest threat to this strategy is definitely Luke. He is the unit that worries me the most. As such, if you are playing Vader, you want to get a few wounds onto Luke before he engages with the Dark Lord. I've had great success doing this with my bikes, as well as my DLTs. I hold my bikes as long as I can on Turn 1, and generally send them Jedi Hunting. Even if Luke has 2 or 3 wounds, it makes Son of Skywalker so much riskier.

Also, when playing Vader, Dodge tokens are oh-so-important. Force Reflexes is used every single turn. I have Force Choke equipped for when I'm in a pickle and need to take out an annoying Z-6 or something, but Force Reflexes is what I am refreshing every turn. Vader gets a dodge EVERY TURN and when I'm in a defensive position my Vader will rarely double-move. Instead, it'll be a second Dodge + Move + Free Attack, or, if appropriate, Aim + Move + Free Attack.

We played the Escalation Event at my game store the other day, and with the above strategy my Vader never died. I did successfully kill a Luke, however.

Do I think Luke is the better Commander? Yeah, as an Imperial player I'm kind of jealous. However, I honestly leave my Veers and AT-ST at home in favour of the aforementioned Vader list. I'm not sure if this will change with Boba comes out. I'm thinking it probably will. However, Vader is no slouch. You just can't march him forever forward and assume he will survive. Which is why Long March is the last thing you ever want to play as Vader!

Completely agree - I favour Vader over Veers for the reasons you mention though in game I always look over my shoulder for Luke.

Have yet to face off against Leia so not sure how playing Vader will change without the Son of Skywalker as a threat.

FWIW, the best way to protect Vader from Luke is to just surround him with enough Stormtroopers to deny Luke a spot to land.

5 hours ago, LunarSol said:

FWIW, the best way to protect Vader from Luke is to just surround him with enough Stormtroopers to deny Luke a spot to land.

I feel like not enough people are doing this. Yes, trooper units can move through other trooper units. But they can’t displace them. If you surround Vader with a trooper squad in base to base Luke can’t physically fit next to him.

Force push would be the natural counter to this, but at least you force Luke to use it on that instead of something more useful.